Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Kapil Sibal stated today that there would now be a Grievance Redressal mechanisms in higher educational institutions. UGC, AICTE and NCTE would be requiring all Central Educational Institutions, institutions deemed to be universities, technical and management institutions under AICTE and teacher education institutions under NCTE to establish a Grievance Redressal Mechanism for Students and applicants for admission before the commencement of the admission this academic year. Every institution would be required to constitute an Ombudsman; person with judicial or legal experience to be appointed from a panel suggested by the affiliating university for technical and management institutions, by the Central Government for deemed universities and by the regulator for non-degree granting institutions. The concerned regulators would issue the detailed instructions to the educational institutions shortly.

There are several grievances that arise relating to students and applicants for admission in higher educational institutions. These grievances require prompt redressal in order to provide timely succor to aggrieved students and applicants. The Parliamentary Standing Committee, while examining the Bill to prohibit and punish unfair practices, had recommended that pro-active steps be taken to constitute Grievance Redressal mechanisms in higher education institution.

Applicants for admission and students can apply to the Ombudsman for redressal of grievances and the Ombudsman shall deliver his/her order within one month. Although the order would not be binding on the institution, the regulator would rely on the frequency of non-observance to decide on continued recognition to such institutions.

The Ombudsman shall have the jurisdiction to hear grievances concerning denial of admission, non-observance of declared merit in admission, non-observance of applicable regulations for reservation, with-holding of documents and non refund of fees in case of withdrawal of admission, discrimination and other such matters concerning students in pursuit of studies in the institution. In case of matters concerning weaker sections such as SCs/STs/OBCs or minorities, the Ombudsman can co-opt a person of eminence from the area coming from the weaker section to assist him/her in arriving at a decision.

Say bye bye to duplicate content.
Now, with WordPress Uniquefier v3.4 all your articles are 100% unique
What is Uniquefier and how is it going to help you?
Uniquefier is a WordPress Plugin which once activated will turn your blog content from duplicate to unique. All it takes is 1 single click to activate the plugin and everything will be 100% unique content.
You may be wondering how is this possible? Well, it is indeed, and no it’s not one of those article rewriters or any spinners you may have heard of. More, the articles will be the same for your site visitors, the changes which are being made to the articles are in the backpage, in the page source, changes which are not visible to the visitors, but only to the search engines bots and browsers. We are not adding hiding text or any kind of such activities which are strictly forbidden, the Uniquefier uses a simple, yet highly effective mechanism of turning your articles unique. It is a well known fact that search engines (for google has been proofed) can run and index non advanced JavaScript from your pages. This is why, by using a special technique we place the original articles under a JavaScript run. This way:

• you get original content as the way you show the articles is different than just a pure copy+paste
• search engines understand what an untrained human eye can’t

Click here to view more details

The world must act immediately to stop the rapid loss of animal and plant species that allow humans to exist, the United Nations warned on Monday at the start of a major summit on biodiversity.

Delegates from the 193 members of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are gathering in the central city of Nagoya to try to work out strategies to reverse a man-made mass extinction.

“The time to act is now and the place to act is here,” CBD executive secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf said as the meeting opened, describing the 12-day event as a “defining moment” in the history of mankind.

“Business as usual is no more an option when it comes to life on Earth…we need a new approach, we need to reconnect with nature and live in harmony with nature.”

Delegates were told human population pressures were wiping out ecosystems such as tropical forests and coral reefs, killing off animal and plant species that form the web of life on which humanity depends.

“This meeting is part of the world’s efforts to address a very simple fact. We are destroying life on Earth,” the UN Environment Program’s executive director Achim Steiner said in a speech at the opening ceremony.

“We are destroying the very foundations that sustain life on this planet.”

Delegates in Nagoya plan to set a new target for 2020 for curbing species loss, and will discuss boosting medium-term financial help for poor countries to help them protect their wildlife and habitats.

But similar pledges to stem biodiversity loss have not been fulfilled, and Djoghlaf said governments around the world had to acknowledge that failure.

“Let’s have the courage to look into the eyes of our children and admit that we have failed individually and collectively to… to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010,” Djoghlaf said.

“Let us look into the eyes of our children and admit that we continue to lose biodiversity at unprecedented rates.”

At the start of the decade, UN members pledged under the Millennium Development Goals to achieve “a significant reduction” in the rate of wildlife loss by 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity.

Instead, habitat destruction has continued unabated, and some experts now warn that the planet faces its sixth mass extinction phase — the latest since dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago.

Nearly a quarter of mammals, one third of amphibians, more than one in eight birds, and more than a fifth of plant species now face the threat of extinction, said the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In May, a UN report warned of looming “tipping points” that could irreversibly damage ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest, through logging and land clearance, and coral reefs through global warming and overfishing.

The Earth’s 6.8 billion humans are effectively living 50 percent beyond the planet’s biocapacity in 2007, according to a new assessment by WWF that said by 2030 humans will effectively need the capacity of two Earths.

Meanwhile, disputes between rich and poor nations that have plagued efforts to curb greenhouse gases threaten to similarly hamper biodiversity negotiations.

The European Union is calling for a target of halting biodiversity loss by 2020, while many developing nations only support a weaker goal of “taking action” on the issue.

There are also tensions over efforts to forge an accord on the “equitable sharing” of the benefits from natural resources — for example a medicine derived from a jungle plant — under a so-called Access and Benefits Sharing Protocol (ABS).

Under a proposal backed by developing nations, companies would pay a “gene fee” if scientists find plants or animals that have been used by indigenous groups and have commercial use such as in the pharmaceutical industry.

Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira warned this month that “for us, it is not acceptable to go to Nagoya and not have an agreement for (the) ABS Protocol…We need a deal.”

Some developing countries have warned that a plan to set up an international scientific panel to assess biodiversity issues and advise policy makers could be blocked if there is no deal on the ABS protocol.

Politicians in new democracies take their time to learn the rules of the game. The current crisis in Nepal is, however, a result of its politicians’ refusal to learn anything from the brief history of the country’s parliamentary democracy. Last month, the country came close to a constitutional vacuum until the government and the Maoist opposition agreed to extend the tenure of the constituent assembly by another year. The two sides are on a collision course again over the Maoists’ threat to not approve the annual budget unless the prime minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, resigns. This is not the first time that the former rebels have indulged in such brinkmanship. Mr Nepal’s government has not exactly covered itself in glory during its brief tenure. The unstable coalition he heads has spent its time and energy more on surviving than on governing. Many even in Mr Nepal’s own party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), and in his biggest ally, the Nepali Congress, would like him to quit if his exit helps forge a national consensus. Given the current impasse, Mr Nepal’s departure may be a necessary condition for saving the country from yet another spell of constitutional void.

But the Maoists too have to keep their side of the bargain. They cannot hope to be a party of the government and a militia at the same time. There is enough evidence to suggest that the Maoists continue to use their armed wings in their attempts to control Nepalese politics. Their refusal to come clean on the issue of “integration” of the former People’s Liberation Army combatants in the Nepal Army suggests that they have a hidden, undemocratic agenda. Given the current state of political instability, the idea of a “national unity government” replacing the present one led by Mr Nepal has its merits. But such unity can only be built on mutual trust. As they form the largest group in the constituent assembly, the Maoists need to be taken into confidence in building a consensus. It may even be necessary to allow them to lead a consensus government. But before that is even attempted, the Maoists have to dismantle their armed wings and accept democratic norms unequivocally. After all, the most important question for the people of Nepal is not who runs the interim government but how the peace process can be saved. In or out of power, the Maoists pose the biggest challenge to peace in Nepal.